


Meet the Rest

by Trumpeteer34



Series: Multicolored [2]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Child Abuse, Dissociative Identity Disorder, Gen, Multiple Personalities, One-Shots, Past Child Abuse, Team Building, Team Dynamics
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-10-18
Updated: 2013-11-16
Packaged: 2017-12-29 18:41:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,772
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1008732
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Trumpeteer34/pseuds/Trumpeteer34
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Following the end of "Multicolored," the rest of the team finally get to meet Bruce's other personalities.</p>
<p>This is a series of one-shots that will pair an Avenger with a personality.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Clint

**Author's Note:**

> A little later than I would have wished, but here begins the series of one-shots I promised when "Multicolored" ended. Updates will be a little sporadic.
> 
> I do not own any of the characters present (save for the personalities, on some level). They belong to Marvel comics. This was written purely for fun. Please note that I am not a trained psychologist.

“Tower, sweet Tower,” Clint sighed to himself as he climbed out of the passenger seat of the SHIELD sedan. The late-night air was crisp, and he drew a deep breath in, allowing it to fill his lungs. 

With a heavy exhale, watching how his breath misted in the air, the exhausted archer turned and pulled his quiver, bow, and duffle bag from the car. He offered a loose salute to the driver, a SHIELD agent he hadn’t learned the name of yet. He didn’t bother to see how the agent reacted and slammed the door shut and made his way up to the doors.

After keying in his password and offering himself to the bio-scans, he entered the building. Each heavy footstep echoed through the empty and cavernous lobby as he walked to the elevator.

_“Good morning, Agent Barton,”_ JARVIS greeted the archer once the doors had shut.

Clint groaned and leaned back against a wall. “Don’t remind me how late it is, man,” he replied in a voice that was most certainly _not_ a whine. He already knew that it was after three in the morning, and he had been awake for close to two full days now.

_“Apologies, sir,”_ the AI responded. _“Straight to bed, then?”_

The archer’s eyes narrowed on the button that would lead him to his floor, where his wonderful bed was beckoning him like a siren call. But then his stomach growled loudly.

_“Or perhaps a detour to the kitchen first would be best,”_ JARVIS commented dryly.

Clint grinned to himself and bowed his head. “Perhaps,” was his cheeky retort. 

Without another word, the elevator started to lift, going past level after level until it reached the communal floor. It took a concentrated effort to push himself off of the wall he was leaned against and he staggered into the living room, mumbling a thanks to the AI.

He walked past the entertainment center, dropping his things onto the floor as he moved. He’d grab them on his way up to his floor. Without it registering that the light was already on, Clint stepped into the kitchen and toward the refrigerator. From the corner of his eye, he could see someone seated at the table; it didn’t really surprise him. The Avengers all kept rather odd schedules, so it was never really all that strange to find someone awake at close to four in the morning.

“Hey,” he mumbled to whoever it was at the table, not bothering to look over. He opened the fridge and squinted inside at his options. His eyes lit up when he immediately spotted the pizza box.

As he yanked the pizza box out of the fridge and turned to face the counter, he spoke again. “You want any?” he asked, flipping open the box. There was still half a pepperoni pizza left—not the kind of topping he’d normally order, but he wasn’t complaining.

When no answer came from the table, he finally looked up—

—and immediately did a double-take.

Seated at the table was a little boy, staring straight back at him with wide eyes like a deer caught in the headlights. While he didn’t look frightened, there was still a very clear note of anxiety on his face. The kid’s hands were in his lap, but they had obviously been preoccupied with the colored pencils that were scattered nearby on the tabletop. That was clue enough to identify the child, but the blue tint to his skin made it blatantly clear.

This was one of Bruce’s personalities.

It had been several weeks since Clint had seen one of Bruce’s other personalities, aside from the Hulk. He had caught the tail end of whatever had happened between the green goliath and the dark red one that had broken the window. No one had spoken about it once Bruce had recovered, and it seemed just best to pretend like the event had never happened. Before that, he and the rest of the team had met Papa.

But even after the team found out that both Bruce and Hulk knew about their dissociative identity disorder, it had very rarely been brought up. So, weeks later, it was just a little surprising to see one of them just hanging out in the kitchen in the middle of the night, doodling at the kitchen table.

Clint finally broke away from his stunned daze and glanced down momentarily at the pizza box in front of him. “Robby, right? There’s plenty left, if you’d like some,” he offered, just for the sake of breaking the silence.

The little blue boy blinked, like he had also been snapped from his thoughts, and glanced away from Clint’s face to the logo on the pizza box. “Yes. I mean, no. I mean…yes, I’m Robby, and no thanks to the food. Thank you, though.”

The archer shrugged and picked up a slice. “More for me,” he said before taking a bite.

Robby scrunched his nose a little. “You’re eating it _cold?”_ he asked, like he had never heard of such a thing.

“Tastes fine,” Clint replied around a mouthful, and swallowed. He grinned a little apologetically. “Sorry, it tastes fine cold.”

“Huh…” was all the kid replied with.

A moment of silence passed between the two of them as Clint took another bite. As he chewed, his eyes strayed from the boy to the pieces of paper on the table. He swallowed, and gestured with his slice of pizza at them. “Don’t let me interrupt, little man; you can keep drawing.”

“You didn’t interrupt,” Robby said hastily, raising his hands a little defensively. “I was just…um…” 

Clint quirked an eyebrow when the kid trailed off. “Just…?” he prompted the boy to continue.

He was expecting something bad, so it surprised him when Robby beamed at him. “You’re _Hawkeye_ ,” the boy said softly in an excited whisper. 

A small chuckle escaped from the archer as he offered a single nod. “Yep, I’m Hawkeye,” he affirmed. He rounded the kitchen island and hopped up onto the counter. “Sorry, I’m a little sucky—er, _bad_ at introductions,” he said, wincing a little at the mildly bad language that slipped out in front of the—what, five year old? “You can call me Clint, though.”

The kid grinned again. “Clint,” he said softly.

After that, Robby picked up a colored pencil and returned to his drawing. Clint’s eyes moved to the doodle, and he grinned around another bite. It showed himself and Thor, game controllers in hand. That had been last week sometime, when the archer had finally taken it upon himself to teach the demigod how to play video games. 

He was honestly surprised to see it depicted in Robby’s artwork. Bruce had only witnessed it momentarily in passing—long enough to make a wry comment—before he had retreated to the labs. Clint hadn’t thought that such a brief encounter would stick with him, let alone one of his child personalities. The kid even remembered what color shirt he had worn that day.

“Is it _really_ true you can hit _any_ target?” Robby asked suddenly, breaking the archer from his thoughts. The boy looked over at him with blue eyes full of curiosity.

Clint grinned. “Sure is,” he replied. “I’d show you, but I haven’t slept since Tuesday, and I don’t think my body would react kindly to any sort of physical activity right now.”

The boy’s brow furrowed. “What’s today?”

“Technically, it’s Friday,” Clint answered. 

He tried not to laugh at the kid’s expression when the boy’s eyes shot wide.

“Why haven’t you slept since Tuesday?!” Robby exclaimed. 

Clint shrugged as he stuffed the rest of the slice of pizza in his mouth. “Mission,” he responded once he had swallowed. He started to lean back to grab another piece, but paused. When a sudden thought came to him, he glanced back at Robby. “I can show you my bow, though,” he offered.

He may as well have offered to take the kid to Disneyworld (or something similar that made kids excited). Robby positively beamed, blue eyes lit up and grinning wide. “Really?!” he asked, practically bouncing with excitement.

With a chuckle, Clint slid off of the counter and walked back into the living room. The kid’s energy must have been contagious, for the archer didn’t feel quite so tired anymore. His muscles still protested when he knelt down to pick up the case that housed his bow, and protested again when he stood up once more. 

Robby was still seated at the table when he reentered the kitchen, and his eyes shone with his excitement. Clint set down the case on the kitchen island and flipped it open. His hand easily slipped around his folded bow, and with practiced ease—despite his exhaustion—he flicked his arm and the bow snapped open. “There you have it,” the archer said, turning to look over at the kid.

“Wow…” the personality breathed reverently, huge eyes locked on the weapon. He studied the bow for a long time before he glanced at how Clint was holding it. Finally breaking his stare with the weapon, Robby shuffled through the papers in front of him. He pulled one free from the rest and held it up, eyes dancing between his drawing and Clint’s hand. 

He grinned. “I did do it right,” he said to himself, sounding pleased. He flipped the sheet around and held it up for the archer. “See?”

Clint leaned forward to look at the drawing, and he grinned too. “You sure did,” he answered. “You’ve got a good eye for detail, little man.”

The kid flushed a little at the compliment, but he was still grinning. “Thank you,” he said quietly. “And thanks for showing me your bow. It’s _super_ cool.”

The archer chuckled and put the bow gently down on the table across from Robby. “I think it’s pretty cool, too,” he said as he hopped back onto the counter, snagging another slice of pizza.

==

When Clint reemerged from his room mid-morning, he was feeling almost human again. He hadn’t wanted to get his sleep schedule completely out of whack, so he had slept for maybe five hours before he forced himself out of bed. After that second slice of pizza, he had retired for the evening, bidding Robby good night. It had been close to four-fifteen at that point.

So it was just before ten in the morning that he stepped into the kitchen, having already showered. Tony and Bruce were in there, the former sitting at the table while the latter went about fixing some eggs.

“You!” Tony exclaimed, pointing an accusing finger at Clint. “What have I said about leaving weapons on the table?”

Clint rolled his eyes as he stepped forward to pick up his bow. “You sound like Steve,” he replied, and collapsed the weapon.

“Good morning, Clint,” Bruce said in a raised voice to be heard over the argument Tony was beginning to spew.

The archer turned a wide grin on the physicist. “G’morning, doc,” he said in a sickeningly sweet voice. He slipped his folded bow back into the case, which he had left on the counter. “How are you on this fine Friday morning?” 

He heard Tony grumble something behind him, but paid the man no mind. An innocent smile spread across his face when Bruce turned from the stove to glance over at him. He knew he wasn’t fooling anyone.

Bruce rolled his eyes and returned his attention to the stove. “Stop riling up your teammate,” he admonished, but there was no heat behind the words. “Eggs?” 

“Please,” Clint answered sweetly. He turned around and sat himself down at the kitchen table next to Tony, who was flipping idly through the doodles left there. He nudged the engineer with an elbow. “Sorry, the kid wanted to see my bow this morning.”

Tony looked up. “You met Robby?” he asked, sounding surprised.

“Yeah, he was in here doodling when I came through this morning,” Clint replied with a shrug. “He wanted to see my bow.”

“I guess that explains his one-track mind, then,” Tony replied before he returned his gaze to the slips of paper.

Clint shot the man a confused look, and then leaned in to look at the artwork with Tony. There were the ones that he had seen before he had left to go to sleep, but it looked like Robby had done several more after he had left. Sure enough, several of the drawings depicted him with his bow, fully detailed and _gorgeous_. There was even one of him sitting on the counter with a grin on his face and a slice of pizza in hand.

The archer knew he was grinning, and didn’t even try to hide it. “Looks like the kid’s got a new favorite,” he commented smugly before he returned fully to his seat, ignoring the dirty look from Tony.

“Great,” Bruce replied from across the kitchen as he spooned the scrambled eggs onto a plate, “someone else to boost your ego.”

Clint gave the physicist a faux-hurt expression while Tony snickered behind a sip of coffee. 

Bruce put two separate plates of eggs down in front of the two men at the table. “He doesn’t have a favorite; he likes all of you,” he said, returning to the stove to get some eggs for himself.

“Yeah?” Clint asked around a mouthful.

The physicist wrinkled his nose at Clint’s poor manners—Clint was instantly reminded of the face Robby had made when he had started eating his pizza cold—and sat down at the table across from the other two. “It’s all he ever writes about,” Bruce replied.

Clint made a thoughtful sound as Bruce took a bite of his breakfast. He hadn’t known that Bruce was communicating with his other personalities (aside from the Hulk).

A small, amused chuckle escaped from the physicist, breaking the archer from his thoughts. Bruce swallowed his bite and looked up at Clint, eyes twinkling with mirth. “He actually left me a note this morning about you,” he said. “He thinks you eat pizza funny.”


	2. Natasha

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I do not own any of the characters present (save for the personalities, on some level). They belong to Marvel comics. This was written purely for fun. Please note that I am not a trained psychologist.

“Widow, you’ve got some bogeys on your tail,” Clint’s voice came through her radio. Natasha turned swiftly on her heel and took out the three approaching creatures coming up behind her before she continued to race forward toward the closest clump of aliens.

Ever since the Chitauri invaded close to a year ago, it seemed like Earth had become a hot-spot for alien invasions. The scientific community at large was still in awe over solid proof that human beings were not the only intelligent life in the universe, and the conspiracy theorists were still denying the existence of alien life and claiming that the initial invasion was tied to the government. 

As for Natasha, it was just another day’s work. She rounded about and sunk her Widow’s Bite into the chest of an oncoming alien, ignoring the creature’s death throes to listen to the orders coming from Captain Rogers through her earpiece. Her eyes rose to the sky to watch Thor and Stark fly off to take down the mothership. As for the rest of the team, they needed to handle the enemy forces that were already on the ground and—

“Nat, watch—”

Clint’s hasty warning was drowned out by a deafening roar, and Natasha’s blood immediately ran cold. 

The ground beneath her feet shook with a sudden impact and the concrete under her cracked as a result. Before she could even turn around to assess the threat, a massive green forearm wrapped around her torso, and she was pulled against the Hulk’s chest. She could scarcely breathe, frozen as she was in her stifling terror.

She vaguely heard Clint’s frantic voice in her ear, but she was too shaken to speak. She never would have gotten a chance to.

Somewhere behind the Hulk, there was an enormous explosion, and the behemoth curled his body around hers as an intense wave of heat washed over them. 

The action going on around them was only registered vaguely to the redheaded assassin. Instead, her entire world narrowed to the feel of the huge green hand carefully cradling her head and protecting her from danger. There was the feel of tough, almost leathery skin against her face from where it was being pressed lightly into the Hulk’s insanely broad chest. There was the fact that arms that were just as capable of tearing apart the toughest of metals were delicately enfolded around her body. 

She heard the Hulk grunt in pain when whatever caused the explosion hit his back, but Natasha only felt heat.

The Hulk was protecting her.

Her mind was still trying to wrap around it when she felt the Hulk shift, his torso twisting slightly like he was looking over his massive shoulder. One of the arms around her carefully withdrew, while the other one gingerly pulled her away from his body and set her down on the ground.

When Natasha’s eyes shot upward to stare at him in confused disbelief, she found the Hulk staring down at her. The goliath’s eyebrows were set strangely, and his bright green eyes did a quick scan of her.

“Red hurt?” the Hulk rumbled, sounding almost anxious.

Natasha slowly shook her head. “I’m fine,” she replied softly. There were voices in her earpiece, Steve telling one of the team’s flyers to go after whatever had caused the explosion and Clint’s relieved sigh at the sound of her voice. She ignored them; her focus remained solely on the giant standing in front of her. “Thank you, Hulk.”

The savage grin that spread across the Hulk’s face would have been terrifying to her before, but now he just looked insanely pleased with himself. 

He turned himself around—Natasha saw the horrible burns across his back were already healing—and he leapt back into battle with another earth-shattering roar.

Natasha watched him for a lingering moment before she shook off her daze and returned her concentration to the fight going on around her.

==

“He saved me,” Natasha said later, and Bruce nearly jumped out of his skin.

The battle had lasted maybe another hour after the incident with the Hulk, and the team had been victorious. They had already gone through the debriefing and had returned back to the tower to clean up before whatever food Tony ordered arrived.

“Jeez, Natasha,” Bruce muttered as he leaned against the doorframe to his room, a hand on his chest—his heart pounding, no doubt—and eyes staring wide at her in surprise. “How long have you been standing outside my room?” he asked.

Natasha offered a minute shrug as she straightened out of her reclined position against the wall to instead stand straight. She stared at the man across from her, noting how he only looked just a little uncomfortable by her presence. It was remarkable how much their relationship had changed in the past year, where they could be civil with one another, but were always wary of the other’s presence. 

“He saved me today,” Natasha repeated, crossing her arms and staring point-blank at the physicist. Her eyes quickly took note of the bags under his eyes and the overall exhaustion permeating off of him, and knew that he’d be falling asleep during the movie tonight. He also looked a little confused by her comment, if the little furrow between his eyebrows was anything to go by.

“Um…” Bruce began eloquently, “I’m not sure what you’re looking for, but I don’t think I should be apologizing for that…”

A small smile twitched on her lips. “It wasn’t an accusation,” she replied, “just an observation. I was surprised.”

Bruce studied her for a moment, and Natasha immediately thought of the way the Hulk had looked her over for damage earlier to make sure she was alright. “He didn’t hurt me,” she assured him.

“I know he didn’t,” Bruce said. “He tries really hard not to hurt his teammates.” He looked down at the floor for a moment. “He actually does like you, Natasha,” he disclosed softly. “He just doesn’t know how to interact with you.”

It was the truth, but it didn’t make the sudden tightness in her chest feel any better. She knew it was her fault that they didn’t have as close a bond as he did with the rest of the team, and it wasn’t just her interactions with the Hulk that were to be blamed for it.

“Like you?” she asked softly, not an accusation, but another observation. When Bruce quickly looked back at her, a protestation on his lips, she quirked an eyebrow that immediately silenced him.

Instead, he sighed and looked down at the floor, unconsciously shrinking a little into himself and hunching his shoulders defensively.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

Bruce immediately looked straight back at her. 

Natasha let her arms fall to her sides as she stared right back at him. “That incident on the helicarrier, the first time I met him, has tainted every other interaction I’ve had with the both of you. You do have control, Bruce, and neither of you are monsters. I’m sorry it’s taken so long for me to see that.”

They stared at each other for a long moment, the man at an obvious loss for words. Then, to her surprise, Bruce smiled. “You’ve handled it a lot better than most, Natasha,” he replied honestly. “Thank you for giving us a second chance.”

The smile that appeared on Natasha’s face was genuine, which surprised her again. 

Before she could reply, JARVIS’s voice came from above. _“Pardon the interruption,”_ the AI began, his tone filled with a long-suffering fondness, _“but Sir is demanding your presence in the penthouse for, and I quote, ‘kickass Chinese food and mind-blowing entertainment’.”_

Natasha rolled her eyes as Bruce huffed a laugh. “Tell him we’re on our way, please,” he replied, and they both started walking together toward the elevator.

The assassin slowed down to match her steps with Bruce’s, who always moved a little slower and stiffly after a transformation. He shot her a look of gratitude and a smile, both of which she returned. 

“Thank you,” she said softly.

==

The next team practice they had was the first in which Natasha worked with the Hulk, to the shock and outright relief of their teammates. The giant looked surprised that she had willingly approached him, but he looked positively thrilled.

And if the Hulk followed her around like a happy child who had made a new friend, that was neither here nor there.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was absolutely necessary before Natasha can start meeting the other personalities. Hope you enjoyed!


End file.
